A Break-Up Story
Copyright © 2000 Em

God, I love the Comedy Network. Late night re-runs of "Saturday Night Live" are my saving grace sometimes after a long day on the road, I swear. I don't know what Eddie Murphy has (his Gumby and Buckwheat should go down in history as the funniest characters of all time) but it needs to be bottled and sold. I'm sitting here, clutching my aching stomach muscles and wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, when there's a knock on my door.

"Hey, Joey?"

It's Lance. I thumb down the volume and stagger over to the door; damn, I'm actually... tired, I guess is what it is.

He's staring absently at something way off in the hallway when I open the door. "Hey, what's up?" I greet him, and he swings his head my way, giving me his patented 'I'm hangin' in there' look. Pursed lips, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. I know that look. It's the look he gets when we're about to do a major show, like the Billboard Awards or the American Music Awards. Or the look he gets the first night of our tours when the homesickness hits him. So something's definitely bugging him.

But I don't tell him I know that. Instead I invite him in and sit down across from him on my bed. Dammit; they're doing that hilarious shark sketch on SNL now. It's only gonna distract me, and I want to give Lance my full attention, so I turn the TV off completely. He protests, but it's a token protest; he knows I'm on to him.

"You okay, man?" I ask him, careful not to sound too concerned, and then sit back (figuratively speaking) until he feels ready to talk about it. It's the cool thing about our relationship. If he wants advice or wise words or something about a problem, he'll go to JC or Chris. If he just wants to vent and have someone join in for support, he talks to Justin. Me? I don't pry. He doesn't have to get into the gory details if he doesn't want to. I just want to see him happy; so he comes to me to cheer him up, tell him everything's gonna be okay. Everything like that.

But I don't really know what to say when he shrugs slightly and says, "Me and Danielle broke up tonight." He says it real quiet, you know... like he almost whispers it, and he's looking at the bedspread like it's got the most fascinating design. "I, um... I called her. Tonight, after the show. And uh..." He shrugs again.

"You know, we just never... see each other these days.... I mean, just because her schedule's not as busy as mine doesn't mean she should be flying all over the God-damn country just to see me, you know?" He laughs a little bitterly and I know he never says God-damn, so he must be quoting her. "And I said I made it to your prom, didn't I? And she said yeah, but it shouldn't take something that big for me to be able to see you."

He's still studying the bedspread; it's not my cue to talk yet. "So... we broke up. I guess she broke up with me, but... well, anyway, we broke up." And then he looks up at me. Showtime.

"Sorry 'bout that," I say. See, this is why he doesn't come to me for advice or wise words. But he looked up at me and he looked so friggin' sad. I don't deal well with sad. I don't get sad. I don't know what to say to sad. I wanna crack a joke, or tackle him and tickle him, something. But I don't want to make light of the situation, either. It's not like someone in his family died or anything, but Danielle's been around since last summer. That's a long time. And Lance doesn't get into relationships easy; none of us do. So that 'there's a million other fish in the sea' speech isn't right for tonight.

He's just staring at me now, and I guess it's been a while since I made my lame little comment. I don't know what he wants from me; I'd happily jump on the Danielle-defamation bandwagon if I thought he wanted me to bash her to cheer him up, but that's not his nature. I never minded her, really. She was a cute little thing and she genuinely liked our music and everything. I don't know if she liked Lance as much as he liked her, but she didn't seem like a user. "She was nice," I say instead, nodding, and it's all I can do not to cringe when I realize what I've done. Good job; remind him of her good qualities. Shit.

And the way he's looking at me. Have his eyes always been that clear? They're like... they're like lemonade. Limeade? They look bigger than usual these days because he still hasn't gained back all the weight he lost when he was sick. They're flickering all over the place. He always does that; it's like he's trying to take in everything at once and it's more than his two eyes can handle. He rakes his eyes up and down my face and I sit still to let him study me, like he can see right into my head. His eyes dart from my eyes to my mouth and back again; eyes to mouth, eyes to mouth.

And they're filling with tears.

As I sit there like a complete moron contemplating my options (do I reach out and hug him? tell him not to cry? tell him it's okay to cry? turn back on snl so we can try to forget the whole thing?), his mouth twitches a little and I know what's next. He doesn't cry much; he has a complex about the rest of us guys thinking he's weak or girly or something. Justin'll cry, sure, and JC. But me and Chris and Lance usually try to suck it up. Some macho bullshit that nobody really buys but everyone plays along with. The first time I saw him cry in a long while was a few weeks back, just before a show, because he felt too sick to go onstage and he knew he had to anyway. And his mouth twitched, just like that. And any second now the tension's gonna break on the drops hanging from his eyelids and dammit, I don't want to see him cry.

I don't even need to think about it anymore. I grab him and I'm hugging him, squeezing him, and he hugs me back and just kind of sighs against my shoulder. "It's okay," I say, and rub his back, and I can feel his ribs and it sort of upsets me because he used to be... bigger. "You'll feel a little better every day. And it'll be easier now because you don't have to see her all the time." Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's a good thing right now. It broke them up, but now it's a good thing.

"The press asks me about her all the fucking time," he says, slurring slightly, his head turned away from my neck. "I'm gonna have to tell them. 'Oh, yeah, we broke up. No, we never saw each other. Yeah, I'm fine. It was for the best, really.'" He moves a hand from my back for a moment and starts fidgeting. He's probably wiping his eyes; doesn't want to cry on my shirt. I'd say I don't mind, but I don't want to put him on the spot. I'm still rubbing his back; well, more like patting it now, I guess. Fuck, I don't know what to do, but he's not stopping me, so it's all I can do.

"I really wanted it to work out, 'cause she was so perfect for me, you know?" he continues, and I have to strain to hear him because he's speaking so softly and still facing the other way. "I mean, she knows all about the press, and fans, and... what it's like to be misquoted and photographed. You know, she really got it. That's not something you can explain to people. You just have to know. And she knew; she understood. And we still couldn't make it work." He turns his head and looks up at me, watching me watch him out of the corner of my eye. "What does that mean for me?"

I want to tell him it doesn't mean anything. That it just wasn't meant to be with Danielle and that he could find the right girl somewhere down the line (but soon, of course) and she would understand and put up with the long distances and the media and the fans and all of that mess. But the truth is that he probably won't find anyone like that. He, like the rest of us, will be blissfully or terminally single, depending on how he wants to look at it; he could fuck a different groupie every night if that's what he wants, or he could mope about losing that rare person who would understand him the way us guys understand him.

"I understand you, Lance," I murmur, and wrap my arms a little more tightly around him. And then the thought hits me; maybe he loved her. Maybe it's more than that she understood what the fame was like. Maybe he thought she was the one and that's what he was torn up about. "Were you in love with her, do you think?"

I've never been in love. I mean, I've liked many a girl, and I know what that's like. I know what it's like to be so crazy about a girl that she makes you feel sick, but you just have to be around her because it's the best sickness you ever felt. I know what it's like to be so sprung on a girl that you put up with all of her shit because that one second where she turns a real smile on you it makes your week. I don't know if love is any stronger than that, but I know the way Lance looked at Danielle, and he sure as hell liked her; that much was clear.

He sighs, his breath still shaky, and it tickles at my neck, warm and damp. He's thinking. His hand is tracing patterns on my shoulder and I don't know what it is about that, but suddenly I'm really glad to be holding him. I don't think he knows he's doing it.

"I think I just really liked her a lot," he says finally, and pulls away, halfway out of my arms. He watches me again, limeade eyes staring into my head. He's still close, and I don't know what's going on because I could swear that I didn't move towards him, but suddenly we're, like, too close.

His eyes close, and mine do, too, and I feel his lips touch mine. They're wet, and it's not because he's sloppy; his tears have run down over them and he hasn't wiped it away yet. Our mouths are both closed, and his lips are soft, but they're firmly pressed against mine so I know he's kissing me back. Or I'm kissing him back. I don't know whose move this was, but I've never kissed -- been kissed by, whatever -- a guy before, and I know, it's Lance; I love him, God -- but it feels good, and different, and better, and... I pull away. Our lips part, but only for a moment, and I open my eyes to see Lance lean further forward and he kisses me again, just lightly, before pulling back himself. His eyes flutter open and take in my face again. Eyes to mouth, eyes to mouth.

I lick my lips unconsciously, not realizing I've done it until I taste the saltiness of tears on my tongue. I savour it during the silence that follows.

And let the awkwardness begin... NOW.

"Hey, thanks, man," Lance begins, speaking loudly, as he crawls off of my bed. He wipes at his cheeks with the heels of his palms. "You know, for--" he gestures back at me. "Everything. You know. Thanks."

"Hey, no problem," I assure him, getting off the bed as well. I walk around the foot of the bed to meet him. "And anytime you need to, you know... talk, get anything off your chest... if you need me to cheer you up--"

He cuts me off, that typical guy need to never allow a moment of silence asserting itself. "Yeah, sure, I know you always cheer me up, so I'll definitely--"

"That's great. So, um, are you gonna go back to your room now?" He's been inching towards the door. I know I don't make him uncomfortable, so I'm not offended. I want to escape this weirdness just as much as he does. Maybe more.

"Yeah, I do think I feel better, so I'm gonna go. Try to get some sleep. Maybe call my mom." He twists the doorknob open behind his back and steps back into it. I'm only a step away from him.

"'Night, Lance." I say it softly as he steps into the hallway.

He nods back at me. "'Night." And I finally get a smile from him, just before he turns to head back to his own room.

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